Each year, on March 25^th, historians and journalists mark the anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911 that resulted in the deaths of 145 immigrant women in New York City. The calamity is an object lesson in the histories of immigration, women’s lives, labor conditions, and safety hazards. It is regularly taught in undergraduate survey courses in American history, and rightly so.

Nearly three decades after the Triangle Shirtwaist blaze, another fire claimed even more lives. Known as the Rhythm Club Fire, it occurred in the small town of Natchez, Mississippi, on April 23, 1940. Those who died in the Rhythm Club dance hall in Natchez were all African American; however, except for case studies written by firefighters who rank it as the fourth deadliest club fire in the history of the country, this tragedy is barely known to the American public.

A centerpiece of African American life in Natchez, the Rhythm Club was located in the black business district along St. Catherine Street. The club featured black musicians who traveled between Chicago and New Orleans and across the South on what was known as the “chitlin’ circuit,” a series of black-owned clubs where African American musicians performed to primarily black audiences.

Walter Barnes and His Royal Creolians, 1930, Tulane University Digital Library

Ed Frazier, the owner of the Rhythm Club, got lucky when Walter Barnes and His Royal Creolians agreed to add one more stop on their tour as they made their way home to Chicago in the spring of 1940. Barnes, originally from Vicksburg, was a contemporary of Duke Ellington, and while the Creolians had not achieved the same status as Ellington’s orchestra, they were still very popular, had recorded music for Brunswick Records, and could draw a large crowd, which they did on the night of April 23^rd.

The Rhythm Club was a large structure whose exterior was framed and roofed with corrugated metal, and in anticipation of the band’s arrival, the club owner had the place decorated with lights and festooned with Spanish moss. To kill the bugs that burrowed in the moss, a petroleum-based insecticide known as “Flit” was applied to the decoration. Fans were set up to keep the dancing crowd cool.

Black Natchezeans were all abuzz to learn that Walter Barnes was coming to their city and Frazier knew it. A businessman, he wanted to make sure he took in every penny from the concert, so he boarded up all but the front exit, including nearly all of the windows, so that those unwilling to pay the cover charge could neither sneak into the club without paying nor see the revelry inside.

Even though the concert was scheduled during the workweek, on a Tuesday evening, more than 700 people paid the cover charge to hear Walter Barnes’ orchestra. They included many teenaged students and their teachers from Brumfield High School, members of Natchez’s black middle class, as well as men and women who worked for white Natchezeans as laborers and maids. As the revelers danced to the music, late in the evening, near midnight, a fire broke out close to the club’s front entrance. Within minutes the place was ablaze, stoked by the flammable insecticide that covered the Spanish moss and spread by the fans.

The panicked crowd tried the boarded-up exits and could not escape. The front doors, the only remaining exit, opened inward, and the push of the crowd prevented their opening. The band, still playing, switched to the song “Marie,” an Irving Berlin tune made famous by Tommy Dorsey, in an effort to calm the crowd, but it was to no avail. Hundreds of panicked concert-goers were trapped as the club turned into a furnace.

By the time the fire was extinguished, 209 people had perished. Many of them were in their teens. Most died of asphyxiation. The steam created when the water from fire hoses hit the corrugated metal scalded others to death. Still others were trampled to death amid the stampede to exit the club. The remaining victims were burned beyond recognition. The club owner died along with his customers, as did Walter Barnes and many members of his band.

Natchez was a town of just over 14,000 residents, and almost everyone knew someone who died in the fire. Nearly every African American family lost a loved one.

In order to deal with the magnitude of such personal devastation, the Red Cross sprang into action to help the survivors, which required an effort of interracial cooperation. As funerals made their way through the streets of Natchez, both black and white Natchezeans lined the street and, together, mourned the loss.

But the Rhythm Club Fire also exposed the inherent cruelties of the world of Jim Crow. In a segregated community, only African American morticians were allowed to handle dead black bodies. The three black funeral homes in Natchez were overwhelmed by the magnitude of needed services, and eventually several victims were buried in a mass grave. Adams County Sheriff Joe Serio, who had visited the funeral homes, told reporters that the bodies in them were “stacked like cordwood,” and that identification alone would take time. Anxious black families had to wait.

The Rhythm Club Fire, which both African American and white newspapers referred to as a “holocaust,” devastated not only the black community of Natchez, Mississippi, but also those who had left it and migrated North. Many Mississippians had moved to Chicago, and the Chicago Defender immediately sent a reporter to Natchez to cover what the paper’s editors would describe as “the greatest tragedy ever to strike the race.” It provided extended coverage of the fire and its aftermath.

Indeed, in Chicago, the tragedy hit home. More than 15,000 mourners attended the funeral for bandleader Walter Barnes. The Natchez Social and Civic Club, made up of black Natchezeans who had migrated to Chicago, raised money for victims’ families. The same group also raised money for a memorial to those who died and, on the first anniversary of the fire, traveled to Natchez for its unveiling. Even though they now lived in Chicago, Natchez had been their home and those who had not migrated were still family.

Howlin Wolf, 1972, Wikimedia Commons

The Rhythm Club Fire was also memorialized in poetry and in song, appropriately through the blues. Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker, and less famous blues performers offered their lament in lyrics to songs entitled “Natchez Burning,” “Mississippi Fire Blues,” and even one about the band leader called “The Death of Walter Barnes.”

Neither has the story been lost to the memories of the survivors or their descendants, who still gather annually in Natchez to pay tribute to those who died.

The Rhythm Club Fire is more than a story of tragedy, though it is that, too. It is a story of jazz and the blues, and of African American journalism, and of migration and memorialization. And it is the story of Jim Crow.

“Did you ever hear about the burning that happened way down in Natchez, Mississippi town?” Howlin’ Wolf asked. “Did you ever hear about the burning?”